Critical success factors (CSFs) for information technology governance (ITG)

•The main study’s aim is to investigate and identify the factors that encourage the successful implementation of ITG which will be called in this paper Critical Success Factors (CSFs).•The literature has been thoroughly reviewed and analysed to identify these CSFs.•The literature includes IT Governance standards and best practices; ITG frameworks and models; and related studies.•The extracted, analysed and modified factors have been summarised, classified and sorted based on their importance, relativity and the proper sequence.•Finding of these factors went through different steps in order to have the solution framework, Success Factors for IT Governance (SFITG).

With the rapid evolution of Information Technology (IT) applications and practices across the organization, appropriate IT Governance (ITG) has become essential to an organization’s success. As IT is associated with risk and value opportunities, a comprehensive, high-level system is required in each organization to minimise the associated risks and optimize value. This requirement triggered the emergence of ITG. Many researchers have addressed this field; however, the role played by critical success factors (CSFs) in the successful implementation of ITG has not yet received adequate attention. This gap in the research motivated the present study, with the main aim of defining the CSFs needed for the successful implementation of ITG. CSFs were studied and extracted from the literature review and then analysed, categorised, and synthesized to create the Success Factors for IT Governance Framework.